The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Sea Lions, by James Fenimore Cooper

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net

Title: The Sea Lions
The Lost Sealers

Author: James Fenimore Cooper

Release Date: December 30, 2003 [EBook #10545]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SEA LIONS ***

Produced by Distributed Proofreaders

[Transcriber's note: It appears that the author _may have_ used '
and " interchangeably throughout this text to mean "minutes" whereas
traditionally, ' is used to mean minutes and " seconds. Not knowing
the author's intent, I have left these characters as they were in the
original.]

THE SEA LIONS;

or, The Lost Sealers.

By J. Fenimore Cooper.

Daughter of Faith, awake, arise, illume
The dread unknown, the chaos of the tomb
Melt, and dispel, ye spectre doubts that roll
Cimmerian darkness o'er the parting soul

_Campbell._

_Complete in One Volume._

1860.

Preface.

If any thing connected with the hardness of the human heart could surprise
us, it surely would be the indifference with which men live on, engrossed
by their worldly objects, amid the sublime natural phenomena that so
eloquently and unceasingly speak to their imaginations, affections, and
judgments. So completely is the existence of the individual concentrated
in self, and so regardless does he get to be of all without that
contracted circle, that it does not probably happen to one man in ten,
that his thoughts are drawn aside from this intense study of his own
immediate wants, wishes, and plans, even once in the twenty-four hours, to
contemplate the majesty, mercy, truth, and justice, of the Divine Being
that has set him, as an atom, amid the myriads of the hosts of heaven and
earth.

The physical marvels of the universe produce little more reflection than
the profoundest moral truths. A million of eyes shall pass over the
firmament, on a cloudless night, and not a hundred minds shall be filled
with a proper sense of the power of the dread Being that created all that
is there--not a hundred hearts glow with the adoration that such an appeal
to the senses and understanding ought naturally to prod